and inherent power of motion ceases for ever! Three hearty cheers from all hands engaged in the capture, with the waving and “striking” of the “jacks” displayed in the boats from which harpoons had been struck, announce to the ship the happy issue of the conflict; from whence, in turn, similar exulting cheers are heard loudly responding.[J] We have remarked, in a foregoing chapter, on the economy in Providence, by which the fiercest quadrupeds, under human tact and intelligence, become subdued and tractable. Here, again, we are led to reflect on the economy manifest in respect to the _hugest_ of the animal creation, whether on earth or in the ocean, whereby all become subject to man, either for advantageous employment, as to their living energies, or for purposes of utility as to the produce of their dead carcasses. The capture of the whale by man, when their relative proportions, as to physical power and mass, are considered, is a result truly wonderful. An animal of a thousand times the bulk of man, with a corresponding superiority in strength, inhabiting an element in which man cannot exist, and diving to depths where no other creature can follow, with the capabilities, too, of abiding there for an hour together, is attacked by man on its own ground, not only in the tranquil Pacific, but in the boisterous north-western seas; not only in the open seas of the tropics, but amid ice-bound regions around the pole; and in each region is constrained to yield its life to his attacks, and its carcass a tribute to his marvellous enterprise. Why this result, with such disproportionate physical powers in conflict, should not only take place, but prevalently follow the attack, is satisfactorily explained on the simple principle of the Divine enactment. It was the appointment of the Creator that it should be so. And this, besides what we have already quoted from the sacred records of creation, we have again, by the inspired Psalmist and elsewhere, declared. Hence, as to the fact of the dominion of man over the inferior creation, Divinely yielded, we have the authority of this adoring appeal of God’s inspired servant:—“What is man, that thou art mindful of him!” “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and _whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea_. O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”—Psalm viii. 6-8. No doubt this striking psalm has direct reference to the world’s Great and Divine Redeemer; but what herein is true of the “Son of Man,” is also, in respect to the consideration of the Almighty for man and his appointed dominion, true of men as a species. And so it follows, that the monsters of the deep, as well as the wild beasts of the earth, yield to this law of creation, that man should have the dominant power! * * * * *